The Villainess and I, her Zombie
chapter-92

The three nobles, the eternal servant, and an emperor griffin were walking together in silence.

Despite saying that they would talk on their way, Cranberry would shot down basically any conversion topic that either Roan or Mary have brought up.

At least until one particular topic came up...

"Your highness, if I may, what is your role in the global quest?"

Mary couldn't handle the silence and asked, leaning slightly forward and peeking at Roan's face from below while walking.

Even while being covered by the prince's jacket, her breasts had swayed voluptuously pulling Roan's eyes right to them as if they had their own gravitational pull.

"Graough. (Capture target, I bet.) Graough...? (Or is it something else after all...?)"

Zombie glanced at the prince curiously, and even Cranberry turned her head slightly, showing her willingness to listen.

"My role in the global event you say? I don't see why I should keep it a secret!"

Roan brighter up in an instant, clearly reveling in the spotlight under which he was pushed in.

"You see, my role is something called the Stunning prince of greed / capture target. Not even my mother knows what does that latter part means exactly but at least the stunning prince of greed part sounds really good, doesn't it?"

He boasted, puffing up his chest proudly.

"Ah! I knew it!"

Mary gasped and clasped her hands together, almost dropping the jacket and flashing her scantily clad body for the rest of the group, before others could properly react.

"Ah...!"

And blushed seeing that all the attention got shifted to her, and wrapped the jacket tightly around her torso with a deep blush.

"You knew what exactly...?"

Roan furrowed his brows, doing his best not to stare at the brown-haired girl, but honestly, his own blushing face was enough of proof that he was ogling her this whole time.

"A-ah, I knew that your highness will have some important role!"

The brown-haired girl, in clear distress, hurriedly came up with an explanation while awkwardly looking to the side.

"Oh? And how can you be so sure it's an important role?"

To counter that, Cranberry asked coldly looking over her shoulder at the bashful girl.

Seeing Mary act like a bashful prude was one thing, but watching her try to fool someone while acting like an idiot, was something else that Cranberry couldn't really stand.

The red-haired girl's words caused Mary to flinch and both Roan and Zombie started staring at her with concern.

"I... i-it's just that the members of my family all got roles like a background character or support character and so on, so I deduced that someone with a role with a unique name would be important...!"

Mary's voice grew quieter and she started fidgeting while dodging the looks of the others.

"If you put it that way..."

Roan nodded but didn't look very convinced.

Cranberry and Zombie glanced at each other but didn't comment on that. Even the blue undead had enough brains, no matter how rotten, to keep his mouth shut just in case.

After all, at least before the system had changed the world's setting, Mary could understand him without any trouble.

"Wh-what about you, lady Pride?"

Mary tried to push the attention on to someone else as soon as she could to get out of the sticky situation.

"Me? How about you say what's your role first?"

But disregarding Mary's attempts, Cranberry simply returned the question back to her without answering.

"You've said that all your family members have generic-sounding roles, but what about you?"

She asked with a suspicious smirk.

"You b...!"

It was clear that at that point, the brown-haired girl swallowed the words she wanted to say, probably something not really nice and especially not appropriate to call the high-class noblewoman with. She must have considered what she knew about the young lady of the Pride family and decided that arguing with her was a meaningless struggle while insulting her straight to her face was a borderline suicide.

And she had chosen wisely.

"I'm... I'm the..."

Mary said hesitantly while continuing to sneak glances at the blond prince by her side.

"I'm the Heroine...! Ah!"

She finally said and hid her face in her hands, but by doing so the jacket she was covering herself with almost fell off and she yelped while hurriedly catching it...

...but not fast enough to prevent the prince from taking a peek at what was underneath it...

"Graough...! (I knew it, I called it...!)"

Zombie groaned and shook his head with a sour expression, completely obvious to the embarrassing scene that had played out, that he in his thick-headed innocence had missed.

Even though he had groaned rather loudly, Mary was too busy being both embarrassed and excited for the reaction her title would cause.

"...of what?"

Funnily enough, instead of awe and marvel at the important-sounding title, Mary met with rather doubtful, or even cold, reaction.

And from the prince Roan himself no less!

At least after he had cooled down after taking in an unexpected but a welcomed sight.

"My prince...?"

That question caused Mary to lose much of the gusto she had going for her, and she nervously tilted her head as if hoping that Roan was joking with her.

"You do know that all of the previous global events had something to do with war and changing the balance of power of the whole world, right? Titles like a hero or a heroine had shown up before but..."

To say it lightly, Roan was more than just a little bit skeptical.

Surprisingly enough, his reaction was very similar to Cranberry's reaction when she had first learned about capture targets from Zombie in the past.

"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't believe you, but whenever there were instances of someone receiving a role like that, it was always something like 'Hero of enchanted forest' or 'Heroine of the mountain pass'. You know. Specific stuff. Nothing as general as simply 'heroine'."

The prince explained showing that he actually had a lot of knowledge regarding the global events of the past.

"B-but my role really is a heroine..."

Mary slouched and trembled, muttering her response in a small voice.

"Ekhm...! Just... Just a heroine you say? So... something that's most common in books and legends?"